It is important to know whether our key stakeholders feel that we are living up to our values.

Over the past 18 months, we have carried out three separate surveys that have asked this question of our staff as well as our readers and users.

Perhaps most interesting was the inclusiveness survey carried out in the Spring of 2010, which asked whether senior managers and colleagues lived up to the values laid down by our great former editor CP Scott in a leader article celebrating the centenary of the Guardian in 1921.

The survey was held at a low ebb in the company's fortunes, given there had been two recent rounds of redundancies and significant uncertainty for staff as roles and responsibilities were shifting. Perhaps not surprisingly, staff gave higher scores for how they and their colleagues live the values, but considering the stress the company was under, senior managers received relatively strong acknowledgement.

The highest score in the survey was the 85% of staff who felt they and their colleagues have "integrity" and a "sense of duty" in the way they work on a day-to-day basis.

By far the lowest score for senior managers was over the question of whether they live up to our value of "fairness". Just over half thought they do, compared with three-quarters who think they themselves and their colleagues operate in a fair way.

A summary of some of the scores:

I/colleagues live these Scott Trust values on a day-to-day basis:

• Integrity 85%

• Sense of Duty 85%

• Honesty 83%

• Courage 79%

• Fairness 75%

Senior management live the Scott Trust values on a day-to-day basis:

• Sense of duty 72%

• Courage 67%

• Integrity 64%

• Honesty 62%

• Fairness 52%

In the employee survey carried out in the Autumn of 2009, staff were asked a single question around this issue; whether GNM as an organisation lives up the Scott Trust values.

There was a more positive score of 58%, compared with 54% in 2008, although there was a higher percentage, 21%, who actively disagree.

We also ask nearly 3,000 readers and web users annually a series of questions, including their views on how well our editorial content reflects our core values. In our last survey, around 90% said they believe that the mission of our owner the Scott Trust to operate quality newspapers/news sources free from party affiliation remaining faithful to the liberal tradition, is reflected in our content.